What I Tell You In the Dark

by John Samuel

  It is these small acts of everyday love that sustain me as I listen each time to the empty ringing of Natalie’s phone, and as I find myself surrounded by the lurid calling cards of prostitutes that are posted up in every phone box. The very paper itself seems soaked in squalor and abuse, but I know better than to risk being seen ripping them down, as I would like to. The kinds of men who put them there would be certain to hurt anyone who interfered with their business. And I am not sure I could cope with that. Not today.

  It’s just after midday when Natalie finally answers the phone.

  ‘I’m so glad you’re there,’ I tell her, ecstatic at the sound of her voice. ‘I’ve been trying you all morning. I’ve just been walking the streets calling your phone. I lost my phone when I was … Look, it doesn’t matter now. The important thing is that I’ve managed to reach you now and …’

  ‘Will, you need to slow down.’

  She’s right. I’m gabbling. I need to take my time.

  ‘Sorry – I just really need to see you. I came to your work but –’

  ‘Yes, I know. They told me.’ There’s a distance in her tone that I hadn’t expected. The plan we made seems to be a thing of the past. Confirming this, she adds, ‘That’s my place of work, Will.’

  It’s an oddly formal phrasing. Once again, I feel the stab of concern that she may not be alone, that others are orchestrating this.

  ‘Look, where can we meet?’ I need to get her out of there. ‘I don’t think me coming back to your office is such a great idea after this morning.’

  ‘I’m not sure meeting is such a great idea either, Will.’ It’s a little startling, the way she suddenly raises my name like a barrier between us. ‘We can just talk on the phone.’

  ‘What? No. That isn’t going to work.’

  I don’t like how this conversation is going, how this whole day has gone. My Magpie never brushed me aside like this. I try hard to make myself sound reasonable, like how I was by the fire in Jersey – at rest.

  ‘Look, there’s clearly some kind of misunderstanding. I don’t know what it is but all we need to do is sit down and figure it out. We just need to talk it through. If you want me to explain what all the figures mean, I’d be happy to –’

  ‘I can’t print any of what you sent me,’ she says quickly, like she’s been desperate to get it off her chest. ‘I’m really sorry but there’s just no way. I can’t take a chance on material like that. I’m sure you understand, Will – especially not now, after Leveson. I’ve spoken to the lawyers about it – that’s where I’ve been all morning, in meetings with them. They say there’s just no way. Not unless you can prove to us that this data has not been obtained illegally and,’ for the first time, she softens her tone a little, ‘I think we both know you can’t.’

  ‘I …’ My vision is going a bit grainy. ‘I don’t really understand what you’re saying to me.’ I have to half-bend over and lean my arm against the glass of the phone box to keep from buckling. ‘The information is accurate. It’s all true. What does it matter how I got it?’

  ‘I know this is a shock,’ she sounds pretty shaky herself, ‘but there’s nothing I can do about it. The legal team have the final say and they …’ she trails off. ‘There’s no point in me repeating myself. Obviously, though, I’m not saying that there won’t be a point in the future when we can revisit this. I’m not going to just leave it, Will. I want you to know that. I’m going to keep pressuring for comment –’

  ‘Stop!’ My head is reeling. ‘Just … just hold on for a second. Please. I can make this right, I can …’

  ‘No, Will. You can’t. You’re not getting it – this is a detrimental issue for the paper now, after you sent those mails. I have been told not to touch it.’

  ‘But it’s the truth! We both know it is. Isn’t that all that matters these days?’ I can hear the pleading in my voice, but so what? This is a plea. ‘People publish all kinds of things, everyone leaks stuff. You can’t just say you’re not going to try.’

  ‘You’re being naïve. I’m not an activist, Will, I’m a journalist.’

  ‘Exactly! And you sat there and you said to me … do you remember what you said? You said the paper couldn’t run it as it was, that you needed some “hard evidence”. Those were your exact words. Well, now you have it. That is precisely what I’ve given you.’

  ‘I know what I said.’ She sounds irritated with me, as if I’m the one who’s making this unpleasant. ‘I don’t like this any more than you do.’

  ‘Then do something about it.’ I let that hang for a second or two. There’s really nothing more to add. People can’t just turn away from their responsibilities. But after a few seconds when the line is still silent, I find myself asking, ‘Is this why you became a journalist? To have a bunch of lawyers tell you what you can and cannot write? That doesn’t sound much like Veritas vos liberabit, or whatever grand motto you have printed on the front of your newspaper. It sounds like toeing the party line.’

  ‘Oh grow up, would you? I have to live in the real world, Will. Okay?’

  She sounds really upset. I am too. The receiver is shaking against my ear. Getting into a fight with her is the last thing I wanted. I tell her that.

  ‘Me too,’ she says. ‘I’m so sorry. I wish that …’

  ‘It’s okay,’ I just about manage to tell her before hanging up. But the thing is, it’s not okay. It’s about as far from okay as it’s possible to get.

  I stand there for a while just staring into space, trying to make sense of what I’ve just heard. I realise at some point that I’m staring at a postcard touting the number for an escort service. I swipe at it and catch the edge of my palm on something sharp. I watch the blood well out and drip on to the cement floor.

  The sharp rapping of someone knocking on the glass snaps me to my senses. I step out on to the pavement, leaving a single bloody handprint on the door. Seeing this, the man who was in such a hurry to get in there thinks better of it and walks away without a word.

  ‘Is this what You wanted?’ I shout.

  Thinking I’m talking to him, the man quickens his pace.

  ‘Why do You thwart me?’ I raise my face to the sky. ‘Why do You hate me?’ My words have deflated to almost nothing, just a low sob, barely audible even to me.

  Overhead, the clouds continue to drift, dark-boned, unmoved by the dramas below.

  11

  The rest of the day is a blur. It only comes clear to me again when I find myself back where I started, outside the newspaper offices, trying to pick out a window where I might catch a glimpse of Natalie. It is dark now and getting on for rush hour, so I am able to stand here on the pavement without fear of being noticed and chased off by one of their henchmen.

  Dumb instinct has led me full circle, to the only real foothold I have. There must be a way for me to persuade her. All I need is to see her, and for her to see me, and hear my words in person, not dying in the vacuum of a phone conversation. Spatial proximity: a core requirement for bonding. Any chemist will tell you that.

  This is not her fault, I keep reminding myself. She knows not what she does.

  I have to wait a long time before she appears. At one point shortly after dark, people were flowing out of the building in a more or less uninterrupted stream but by the time Natalie emerges it has reduced down to just dribs and drabs, sputtering out singly and in pairs. There are even some who are beginning to arrive, ready to start working the night shift.

  As I cross the street towards her I am suddenly acutely aware of my dishevelled appearance. I pull the lapels of Will’s jacket tight together to hide my rumpled shirt, I even reach up to pointlessly smooth down my clippered hair. It is not until I’m just a few steps behind her and am about to call her name that I realise the man she is walking next to is actually with her. They are deep in conversation. He is quite a bit older than her but is broad-shouldered and vigorous, a real straight arrow. Natalie seems small and girlish at his side. She is doing most of the
talking. Once or twice he says a few words to her but mainly he just listens, strong-jawed, presidential in his bearing.

  When I call out her name they both turn at the same time. I barely notice him anymore, though – my eyes are locked on her.

  ‘Will! What are you doing here? I thought … What’s happened to you? You look awful.’

  She’s right. I caught sight of myself earlier in the rear view mirror of the cab – the bruise on my nose now spread across to my eye, the black frosting of blood around my nostrils. And now my scabby hand, tightened to a half claw.

  ‘It’s just a couple of bumps and bruises – it looks worse than it is.’ I try to give her one of those closed-mouth smiles that let people know there’s nothing to fear – a wonderful relic of your animal past, if you don’t mind me saying (Look, no teeth!).

  But it clearly doesn’t work. She looks afraid. Instinctively she puts her hand on her companion’s arm and turns to him for help. I look at him too.

  Oh no.

  He’s staring right into my eyes.

  Oh please, no. It can’t be.

  ‘Christ alive, you have been in the wars,’ he says, with such a depth of private, targeted nastiness that there can be no doubt.

  It is. It’s him. It’s Abaddon – if that is in fact his real name. Only He knows what he’s called or where he came from, the rest of us just know him by his blood-soaked track record and the various noms de guerre he’s picked up along the way – Abaddon, Angel of the Lord, Malak, Apollyon, the list goes on. The point is he’s the Big Man’s thug, the one who gets sent in to do the Good Lord’s wet work, which means if you’re seeing him, you’re not long for this world.

  Like most people who find themselves faced with him, my first impulse is to bolt, to just turn on my heel and run as fast and as far as I can. But somehow I find the courage to stay.

  His eyes are still boring into me.

  Look at the state of you. He says this without moving his lips, without altering a single muscle in his face. You’re shaking like a schoolgirl. It’s a disgrace. You, my son, are a disgrace.

  He may have chosen a shiny white corporate captain to jump in with but Abaddon is always Abaddon – he can never be fully disguised. It’s the eyes. I’ve seen those eyes before, and once seen, never forgotten.

  ‘Will, this is David Saint-Clair, head of our Legal Department. Will?’

  I am only dimly aware of her voice. I cannot tear my gaze from Abaddon.

  ‘Why don’t you head back to the office,’ he says to her with horrifying gentleness. And as he’s speaking these words I realise that it was him on the phone this morning. Of course it was. He’s had me pegged this whole time, letting me run around collecting up my evidence, knowing that all he had to do was wait downstream, mouth agape.

  As she starts to go, I step sideways to try to grab her arm, to stop her from leaving me alone with my defeat, alone with him, but he manages to get between us and push me back with a sharp, deliberate nudge in the ribs, right between the fifth and sixth – where the lance went into my crucified body – taking his opportunity to remind me of that.

  ‘Any physical act of aggression,’ he informs me loudly enough for her to hear, ‘will be construed as assault.’ He keeps his face turned towards me so that she is unable to see his gloating expression. ‘I must warn you of that,’ he adds, with a little wink.

  And so I am forced to watch her walk away, my only hope disappearing into what, just a few short days ago, had seemed to me a luminous bastion of truth and integrity.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ he says to me, ‘get a grip on yourself. You look like you’re about to cry.’ He sounds positively delighted at the prospect.

  ‘Stop calling me that,’ I whisper, unable to look him in the eyes.

  ‘Oh I’m sorry, painful memories?’

  I have seen this happen so many times, people coming face to face with their torturers and finding themselves suddenly drained of the rage that sustains them. And now it’s happening to me – his physical presence is simply too much to bear, too resonant of everything he did to me. I am paralysed by it – the dog that tires of barking and just wants to lick your hand. I hate myself but I cannot stop it.

  Still I stare down at the ground.

  Having a nose for weakness, he leans forward so his face is only inches from mine. ‘Don’t worry, pipsqueak, I’m not going to hurt you this time. Not like that, anyway.’ He takes a step back and straightens up before me, his clothes perfectly creased, not a hair out of place. ‘The game’s changed – I’m going to shut you down a different way.’

  ‘You’ll have to kill me,’ I find the strength to say.

  He laughs at this. ‘Aren’t you just precious?’ I feel his meaty palm pat my head. ‘No, no, I’m afraid I won’t be doing anything like that – more’s the pity. It’s been decades since I so much as set foot on the earth, let alone laid a finger on one of these …’ he doesn’t deign to put a word on it, he just gestures in the direction of some passing people. ‘Only a halfwit like you would think about jumping in during this day and age.’ He chuckles at this thought, shaking his head.

  I start to feel some of that fortifying hatred trickle back into me. ‘Don’t try to make out that He parachutes you in like you’re some kind of consultant – we both know what you are. You’re a two-bit killer, always were, always will be.’

  Forgetting himself, he snatches me up by the throat and rams me against the wall. I look wildly about for someone to raise the alarm but the street is momentarily empty. Then he drops me just as suddenly as he grabbed me, and watches me crouching on the pavement, spluttering and coughing.

  ‘Why would I kill a footnote like you?’ He takes a second to light a cigarette and take a long, contemplative drag. ‘Because that’s what you are, son,’ he blows smoke down into my face, ‘a footnote, an irrelevance. Do you honestly think He gave a second’s thought to casting you out?’ He makes a kind of pfff sound. ‘You are so deluded – it’s tragic. No one’s been looking at you and your pointless abominations. They’ve been watching the assets. They’re always watching the assets. It just so happened that you managed to bungle your way close enough to something important for me to have to jump in and sort it out.’

  Here he breaks off and looks around in disgust. ‘Do you have any idea …’ the coast is still clear, so he aims a quick, hard kick into my stomach, grunting the word idea as his shoe connects with my gut ‘… how much I hate …’ again he swings in his foot, this time on hate ‘… jumping into this freak show?’

  I can taste the rust of blood in my mouth along with the bile. My breathing is hectic and shallow. I can hear myself making a little noise as I struggle to get the air into my lungs. I sound like a rusty hinge.

  He flicks his cigarette at me. ‘Get up.’

  When I don’t respond he leans down and drags me to my feet. He then positions his body in such a way that anyone walking along the pavement behind us wouldn’t properly see me. It would look like we’re just standing off to one side, deep in conversation.

  From inside the expensive folds of his coat a phone starts ringing.

  ‘Saint-Clair,’ he says, all businesslike.

  I can hear Natalie’s voice on the other end. He keeps his eyes fixed on mine as he instructs her to remain where she is, and tells her that no, there’s no need for her to speak to me. He’s loving this. He wants me to hear this commanding way he talks to her, he wants me to understand that he has power over her. It’s his chance for a bit of payback after what happened last time, when he tried to chase off Maryam as she wailed at the foot of my cross. Even the other Roman soldiers thought he was out of line, in fact they were about to wade in and put a stop to it (because there are always lines that can’t be crossed, even on days like that), but as it turned out, they didn’t need to. She took care of it on her own. She clocked him a sweet sucker punch right in the throat (a little tradecraft from her bad old days, no doubt), and there was nothing he could do about it. Obviou
sly, though, not something he’s forgotten about.

  ‘The way she fawns to authority,’ he says to me as he flips shut the phone, ‘it’s pitiful.’

  I feel deeply nauseous.

  ‘You know,’ he continues breezily, ‘I’ve barely been off this thing all day.’ He still has the phone in his hand. ‘First of all there was my call to Ben Zetterling – you do know who that is, don’t you?’

  I can’t think straight. ‘I don’t remember. Leave me alone.’

  ‘Oh come now.’

  ‘Please. Just leave me alone.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he says thoughtfully, ‘I will be leaving you very much alone, but all in good time. First, though, I must tell you about my conversation with Ben: you see, he wasn’t sure who you were either. But don’t worry, I soon set him straight. I told him all about you. And he was frankly astonished at my tale, the way you had emailed all those highly confidential, extremely sensitive documents to us at the newspaper, and how you had used his email account to do it. That was the part, I think, that he found most extraordinary of all – I had to tell him twice.’

  He reaches down and wrenches up my chin, which I had dropped down against my chest in a kind of a daze, just staring at the ground.

  ‘Criminal, he called it. Unlawful. Unbelievable – yes, that was the word he used the most. It’s just unbelievable, he kept saying to me. And yet,’ he gives me a gentle, almost playful little slap, ‘I felt bound to point out to him that it was all too believable, all too real. A very grave matter, I said to him. It would have been remiss of me to have done anything less. I even offered him my advice on what should be done next. This, I told him, is a matter for the police. And he couldn’t have agreed more.’ He lights another cigarette and waves it absently in the air between us. ‘I imagine they are looking into it at this very moment.’

  He makes the occasional little stabbing motion with his hand, darting the glowing tip of his cigarette towards my face. I can’t help but flinch back from him. He seems satisfied with this reaction.